Safety
Exposure to high concentrations of carbon tetrachloride (including vapor) can affect the central nervous system, degenerate the liver and kidneys and may result (after prolonged exposure) in coma and even death. Chronic exposure to carbon tetrachloride can cause liver and kidney damage and could result in cancer. More information can be found in Material safety data sheets.
In 2008, a study of common cleaning products found the presence of carbon tetrachloride in "very high concentrations" (up to 101 mg m−3) as a result of manufacturers' mixing of surfactants or soap with sodium hypochlorite (bleach).
Like many other volatile substances, carbon tetrachloride is prone to misuse by inhalation, due to its possible depressant and/or dissociative effect upon the central nervous system. Use of carbon tetrachloride in this manner presents serious health risks, and may result in toxic effects described above.
Carbon tetrachloride is also both ozone-depleting and a greenhouse gas. However, since 1992 its atmospheric concentrations have been in decline for the reasons described above (see also the atmospheric time-series figure). CCl4 has an atmospheric lifetime of 85 years.
Read more about this topic: Carbon Tetrachloride
Famous quotes containing the word safety:
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.... Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
“Once women begin to question the inevitability of their subordination and to reject the conventions formerly associated with it, they can no longer retreat to the safety of those conventions. The woman who rejects the stereotype of feminine weakness and dependence can no longer find much comfort in the cliché that all men are beasts. She has no choice except to believe, on the contrary, that men are human beings, and she finds it hard to forgive them when they act like animals.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“There is always safety in valor.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)